‘Hell’s Kitchen’ review: Gordon Ramsay finally allows for creativity

If there is one major criticism that you can give “Hell’s Kitchen” as a show, it’s that watching each episode almost feels like brushing your teeth every night: It’s hard to remember one thing from another because it’s always the same old routine. Every week, there are some failures, Gordon Ramsay yells at a few people, and then in the closing minutes someone often goes home. Everything is almost always about discipline, and there is not exactly much space thrown in there for what could be another side of the competition: Trying to see whether or not these chefs are creative.

Luckily, we had some of that during what was ultimately a pretty fantastic episode that we will actually remember for a long while. After we had a new edition of the classic taste test (which is one of the best parts of the entire season), we had a chance to see an individual challenge, even before the black jackets were handed down. It was literally just all about getting to cook anything and everything that you want in order to impress the chef, and then the winner gets immunity from the next dinner service.

Unfortunately, this is where the high praise ends this week. We were so excited to see the end result of this challenge, and the first real test of creativity in weeks, and then, we were handed yet another “to be continued” label. Why keep doing this? It completely derails the momentum of the show, since next week, we’ll have completely forgotten that John and Cyndi were the two people in contention for immunity at the end. We don’t really think that this hurts ratings at all at the end of the day. As a matter of fact, it could help to have some consistency in the episodes.

What did you think about this episode, and did you really appreciate getting this bit of creativity at this point? If you want to read our most-recent “Hell’s Kitchen” interview featuring Nedra, all you have to do is click here.

Photo: Fox